Jordan: Bedouin Hospitality, Petra and the Dead Sea
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Petra was built by the Nabataeans — a trading people who carved a city from rose-red sandstone cliffs in the desert of southern Jordan between the 4th century BC and the 2nd century AD. The city was the crossroads of ancient trade routes connecting Arabia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. The most iconic structure, the Treasury — Al-Khazneh — was carved directly into the cliff face and stands 40 metres high. Walking through the Siq, the narrow canyon leading to Petra, and watching the Treasury reveal itself in increments as the path curves is one of the great dramatic reveals in travel.
Jordanian hospitality follows the Bedouin tradition of diyafa — the obligation to welcome and feed guests regardless of the cost to the host. In traditional Bedouin society, a guest was entitled to three days of hospitality before being asked any questions. The host's honour was bound to the guest's comfort. Modern Jordanian hospitality is a less dramatic but still genuine expression of this tradition: the invitation for tea or coffee that appears almost immediately in any social interaction is sincere.
The Dead Sea — at 430 metres below sea level the lowest point on the earth's land surface — is so salty that the human body floats without effort. The experience of reading a newspaper while floating in still water under a desert sun is genuinely surreal. The mineral content of the mud is purported to have therapeutic properties. People coat themselves in it and bake in the sun. The Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of roughly one metre per year. The salt mineral deposits left at its receding shoreline are extraordinary to see.
